


He lived the Life of Ambush

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Classical References, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Gen, Illnesses, Letters, Nurses & Nursing, References to Dickens, Romance, argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctors make the worst patients.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He lived the Life of Ambush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ultrahotpink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrahotpink/gifts).



The other boot sat before him, imperturbable, the dark leather well-polished and gleaming in the weak December sunlight; Jed had never had such an implacable foe. He’d struggled his way into trousers, a linen shirt, braces, and the cravat was at the foot of the bed, a million miles away. He reminded himself there was no rush, no one expecting him for rounds, but it was time, well past time he thought, that he returned to his duties. In his absence, it seemed McBurney had been torn away from the desk he seemed to adore to actually practice medicine again and that perhaps had muted Hale’s howling about the additional patients he’d been required to manage. Jed hadn’t heard much of Hale for the past ten days, the only unequivocal benefit of the illness that had confined him to his room. He let his head hang forward a little, tried to take a few deep, even breaths, to gird himself anew for the battle of the boot. It was still work to breathe in a way he knew it shouldn’t be, better though than he’d been only a few days ago when he couldn’t even lie down if he wanted the next breath; he’d felt the knife at the base of each lung, cruelly carving him within. He hadn’t thought the morning would bother to come, would have said as much if he could, but Mary had seen it in his eyes, the fearful hopelessness of a desperately sick man, and had wiped his face with a damp cloth, laid her cool hands against his back in the nightshirt that clung to him, and had encouraged him gently to try for the next breath, then another. He’d finally fallen asleep after daybreak with the sun on his face and he couldn’t imagine how she’d gone about her regular workday after sitting up with him through the endless night, though he supposed she had, and without complaint. 

She’d been caring for him like a private nurse, in addition to all her other responsibilities, since he’d quite literally fallen ill; he was lucky Samuel had been beside him when he’d stumbled, for otherwise he might have had an injury added to the fever which had toyed with him for a few uneasy days before its acute onslaught. He’d told himself he hadn’t fainted, had just become dizzy and unwell, but Samuel was blunt when he made his diagnosis to Mary and that is what he called it. Jed honestly remembered little from the early days of the illness; he recalled Samuel half-carrying him and his own voice, weaker than he thought it would be, insisting he be brought to his own room “not the ward, not there, no good for the men to see me like this,” and Samuel’s incomprehensible expression as he listened to Jed. Then there was very little that was not darkness and pain and the repellent, clawing chills within his marrow, just fragments of Mary—her hands and the brush of her wide skirts, her accent more pronounced in the wee hours of the morning or when she sang songs from her childhood to console him. She’d held cups of water, tea, broth, whatever she could get into him, up to his mouth, let her palms rest against his cheeks as if she might measure his fever thus. When he woke from bouts of sleep which were like their own pitched battles, he looked first for her, called her name if he didn’t immediately see her moving towards him; one afternoon, Anne Hastings replied when he’d wanted Mary and she’d said, briskly and with less than her regular spite, “She can’t answer your every call, Dr. Foster, she has other patients to tend to, you know.” He’d tried to ask for Mary less after that, but the nights were so long and lonely, the death he’d thought he’d welcome when the needle held him, was so close and so bold, ready to pounce upon him or steal him away without a word to anyone. He wept with fright and pain and Mary had known, even without the sound of sobbing he couldn’t muster; she’d sat beside him, without concern for propriety, and let him rest his head against her breast. The sound of her heartbeat had steadied him as much as the gentle crooning she made, the healthy warmth and scent of her body. He’d seen the way his hand looked, palm open, lying in the drab wool of her skirts, and had tried to memorize the colors, the outline of his fingers, the shadows that defined the cradle of her thighs beneath the yards of cloth. He’d fallen asleep with her hand slowly stroking his hair, nursing no other man had ever received from her at Mansion House.

Yesterday, he’d managed to stay awake the whole morning till she came back at midday to look in on him. And he’d managed to stay awake and feed himself the bowl of soup she’d brought with her, but he could not manage more. She’d only said, “Enough, Jedediah, enough,” and pulled the rumpled blankets straight again, refilled the tumbler from the water pitcher, and settled in beside him with a basket of something—mending or bandages? He’d made a sound that was supposed to be a question and she’d smiled, he’d heard that in her voice, as she said, “Nurse Hastings is more than happy to have command of both wards today. Shan’t we let her have the pleasure, Jed? She’ll know where to find me if she needs to. I think you’d best go back to sleep now, lo--,” she’d broken off but he’d been too tired to try and imagine what else she could have said, or meant. When he’d woken, she was not there but her basket sat primly with neatly folded linens and the blue light of evening filled the room. Henry looked in, exclaimed, “Good Lord, Jed!” then collected himself and said, “You are looking a bit better, I’d venture, but you still need your rest and plenty of it. Don’t trouble yourself, the hospital’s running as it should and I’m making sure Nurse Mary sits down for a cup of tea and a biscuit every afternoon.” 

Jed had tried to look more closely at her when she brought his evening meal, to assess her for exhaustion or resentment or dismay, but she had a blandly cheerful expression and he was too spent with sitting up and getting the latest bowl of soup, this time with a little more substance to it at least, into his mouth and not splashed on his nightshirt or in his beard, that he resigned himself to accepting Henry’s remarks as the truth. He made to send Mary away then so she might attend to whatever she had put aside all the hours she nursed him, but she only waved her hand a little and said that as he seemed a bit more alert, perhaps she’d read aloud and would he rather a little Tennyson or Dickens, as those were what she’d brought along with her. He could not remember ever being tended so attentively when he’d been ill as a child or the rare times he’d suffered with a winter malady after marrying Eliza and he struggled against how much he liked it, how much he missed Mary when she left the room, even when she promised to return. He fell asleep to the cadence of her voice and the tranquil sense of her in the room and woke briefly in the night when she came to look in on him with a hand laid across his forehead and a wordless offer of a drink, the cup lifted to his mouth and then the covers drawn back with a murmured “Just so, back to sleep, that’s what you need.” At dawn, he’d opened his eyes and found her asleep in the armchair she’d pulled up to his bed, a heavy, dark shawl around her shoulders and several chestnut curls escaped from her snood; she’d tucked up her legs beneath her and looked for all the world like a girl of seventeen except that she’d grown too pale. He’d resolved he must leave his room and get on with being well before she became ill herself with her devotion to his care.

She was gone when he woke for the day, the sunlight filling the room and striking the polished tips of his boots, glinting off a silver letter-opener on his desk, and sliding along the curved footboard of the walnut bed. He did feel a bit better than he had, so he’d been optimistic that dressing himself and making his way to the officers’ dining room for breakfast or barring that, the wards themselves, would not be so very difficult. But he had not accounted for the intensity and duration of his illness and clearly, he had not accounted for the stubbornness of his impossible boots. He’d nearly caught his breath again after resting for several minutes when the attempt to drag the other boot on had ended with the boot fallen over, out of his reach, and a spasm of coughing, sharp as an awl, filled his eyes with tears. He was concentrating on the only thing that seemed important, pulling the air in and then forcing the wasted breath out, so he did not hear Mary open the door. She was busy with the tray in her arms, so she in turn did not immediately see him though he had a moment to glance at her. Did she look more tired than she ought? Her hair was not dressed as elaborately as she had previously done though the ribbon tying the snood had both loops in equal proportion; he had seen her less formal though in the middle of the night, her hair in one thick plait secured with a bit of red ribbon. If he spoke…how quickly she would dismiss any worry he might have for her and how unfair it seemed that he could never show her even the smallest degree of care in comparison to what she had offered to him and they must pretend her role as Head Nurse would explain it, to the staff, the men, and above all, themselves!

“Why, Jedediah! Whatever are you doing out of bed?” Mary exclaimed as she turned her head and found him in the armchair and not laid flat in the bed or unevenly propped up by pillows he could never arrange as she did. She had not expected it, that was clear, and he had not won her pleased approval with his progress. 

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission,” Jed replied and he heard his tone, petulant, fretful and saw the smile in her eyes that she would not let settle on her mouth. Then he was angry, his strength returning first as ire.

“Do you mean to coddle me much longer, Mary? Shall you ever let me leave this bed?” he asked, the words falling from his lips as in the fairy tale, snakes and black carapaced beetles, deadly scorpions, crimson and vermilion, their tails held with the peacock’s pride.

“You shall tire yourself, you’re still recovering. I don’t like to see you pushing yourself. I told you when you spoke of this yesterday, it’s too soon. What good will it do if you relapse?” she said. 

He could recognize, somewhere within himself, she was entirely reasonable, that he would make a similar argument to a sick soldier and certainly to someone he considered a friend, but it seemed a devil had taken him or the fever had addled his mind.

“Do you mean to tell me the Executive Officer should take orders from a nurse? Are you basing your assessment on your attendance at an American medical school only, or have you somehow also travelled to Paris, Vienna, Bonn and attended lectures, met with Bretonneau and Longet for tea and edification?” 

Her expression changed then but he did not see that it was the way she had closed herself off when he had cruelly hurt her with his words before. She did not wince, but only pursed her mouth a little, that sweet red mouth he so often wanted to kiss, even when she held it thus.

“Jedediah, I really must insist. This… behavior is not worthy of you, I can’t believe,” she began but he had worked himself into a fine temper now.

“You will insist, will you? Well, we shall see what Captain McBurney has to say, madam,” he announced as imperiously as he could; he could feel the beginning of bronchial attack at the base of his chest and meant to suppress it as best he could.

Mary did not utter a rejoinder or lower her voice and make a gentle remonstrance. Instead, she reached into her apron pocket and drew out a folded piece of foolscap, sealed with an untidy blob of wax, and handed it to him without a word.

He would have demanded “What is this?” or a longer diatribe, but he knew he would cough if he spoke and he had the beginning of a throbbing headache, his pulse a painfully harsh tattoo at his right temple, so he only fumbled a little to open the letter and began to read.

> “Foster,
> 
> I suppose you will be a in a great hurry to return to the wards and the men, but I implore you as a friend and command you as your chief, to remain abed until Nurse Mary says you may join us again. It does no good for any of us for you to make too early an attempt and I won’t risk your health—selfishly, I admit you are too fine a surgeon and physician and if the men complain that I am not quite as expert, it’s a price I must pay for being outstripped by my finer deputy. Though when you are able, you might enlighten me on some of your recent innovations, Blake and Stewart are just making remarkable progress…
> 
> You will wonder at this letter being at the ready, perhaps? You have had the longer acquaintance, so you should be less surprised than I was when Nurse Mary begged it of me. I had been impressed by her equanimity and thoughtful guidance and management of both the staff and the patients since I arrived, but she has outdone herself in your care. Frankly, I dashed this off like a chastened schoolboy at her first gentle request rather than risk the roar of ~~your~~ that lioness. Please, do as she says, else I must sanction you and face my own humbling consequence…
> 
> With respect, signed this day,  
>  McBurney, CMO, Mansion House

Mary had waited quietly while he read, only pouring out a cup of tea to soothe him when he would take it. She had an ability to be still he hadn’t been born with and had never acquired; if he pointed it out, she might say it was only a quality of her nature or that she had not had a choice but to learn, being a woman in a world of ascendant men. She would be sure to make some response that would intrigue him. And now he must admit she was right, that she knew him better than he had imagined, to seek out McBurney—outflanked was the military term and she had deployed the maneuver with the skill of a seasoned general. It conjured a complex emotion in him, the idea of her finding McBurney and demanding the letter, the man’s response, that _your_ struck out but confidently written beneath, and how she would have waited, so serenely, for it to be written, sanded, sealed haphazardly. He wanted to know what McBurney thought, more than just what he’d written, but that was also beyond him now. He lay the letter in his lap and looked at her.

“Well, you’ve won the day, Mary. I’ll go back to bed and I’ll be grateful for that cup of tea,” he said. 

His meager flare of strength had dissipated and now Jed felt lassitude lapping him, the bed not a prison anymore and the refuge it offered not such a burden to Mary it seemed. He rose, unsteady, and she was there with her hand at his elbow, to help him the few steps back to the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and she knelt before him to remove the one boot he’d succeeded with, which seemed to underscore his utter foolishness when compared to the bare foot next to it.

“I think, unless you are very uncomfortable in your clothes, changing back into your nightshirt can wait. I wanted to launder your linens in any case, so you have done me a favor there,” she said, still kneeling but looking up at him with a smile.

“Only you would say that, Mary,” Jed replied, leaning back against the pillows. She stood and he took the tea she’d handed to him, his gratitude lost in the fragrant, herbal steam. 

He didn’t know where she’d gotten honey for it, but he was glad of the rich hint of summer’s bees in the cup. He was obedient now, returned to bed, drinking the medicinal tea and would be able to feed himself the porridge she’d brought on the tray. He thought she would go then, to wash his sheets and clothes, see her other patients, deal with Hastings, all New England efficiency, her fatigue carefully hidden from the general throng, though he could see it plainly now in the morning light.

“Jedediah. It has been… hard, to see you so ill,” she said haltingly but without hesitation, as if she knew the words to be completely true but she was unsure if she should share them. He must wait as she would have done and let her say what she wanted.

“I know you are eager to be well and return to your work, but I am afraid for you, if you should fall ill again…those first few nights, we didn’t know if…McBurney and Hale both came to see you and they looked so grim, and Samuel too. I made Anne come but she said it wouldn’t, she wouldn’t make any difference, it might as well be me nursing you. You were delirious, you could barely speak…but you would call for me. I, I don’t see how I could bear it, if you get worse, if you-- This isn’t, it’s not like before, with the morphine, I knew you would recover then but this time, I have been so afraid for you, to lose you,” she said, her voice low, pained and shy, none of the glad, confident Mary he knew so well. 

They had not spoken of it, but this explanation must serve as her confession, how she loved, and he must find something to say to let her know he understood, perhaps even how he felt, finally beloved and by this dark-eyed woman with her fierce, tender, candid heart. He wished he was not so slow to think clearly, but she was right and he was still unwell.

“I should not have said anything, I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, Jedediah. You need to rest, I’ll leave you and perhaps if you’d rather, I’ll send Samuel with your luncheon and medicine, or Sister Isabella.”

“No, please, Mary. Please don’t send anyone else. You’re, it’s you that I want…looking after me. I understand how hard you are working, I don’t want to make it any harder,” he got out, letting the pause after the word _want_ tell her how it meant _need_ and _desire_ and _require_ , letting his tone tell her what he meant, what she meant. 

She peered at him, a little doubtfully, and he thought he would like to see that unfamiliar expression again in a less difficult circumstance, in some vague future his feverish dreams brought him, a rare benefit of the illness. He kept his regard steady and would not show by even the smallest gesture that he might not have meant entirely what he had just told her. When she was convinced, he saw it, the brilliant smile that lit her face, the red roses that came into her pale cheeks, even an impish spark in her dear, brown eyes.

“I’ll remind you of that, then, Dr. Foster, the next time you talk about European seminars and anatomy journals, or the quality of the evening meal. Though I think it will be a promise you cannot keep, even if you try. Now you must sleep a little and I will sit beside you until you do—the laundry can wait a while and Nurse Hastings has the floors in a condition she’s declared I could never hope to mimic, and I don’t think you will mind if I read ahead a little in David Copperfield—I will go back to our chapter when you wake.”

How could he refuse or resist her? The plain bed seemed the apex of luxury now, this one room more a home than the grand Baltimore townhouse Eliza had insisted on and kept spotless, soulless; the pleasure of their chapter, whatever it could be, awaited, and the boots had been vanquished by the superior army. Mary must have read the classics as well as Dickens, though her military style ran more to Cleopatra than Caesar, Julius or Augustus, in strategem and charm. He followed her orders and let himself fall asleep as she turned the pages and the honey settled in the tea.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a response to ultrahotpink's prompt "I didn't realize I needed your permission" within a traditional hurt/comfort context. But I flatter myself my Mary's plan to outmaneuver Jed with his supervisor is unusual if not unique. Bretonneau and Longet were both renowned French physicians worked in the 1860s.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
